ISTANBUL: After his third night in custody, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was presented to the prosecutors on Saturday, a few hours later thousands of people hit a large -scale show on a large scale of a hit on the streets in Turkey.
It was the third straightforward night that the protesters held a rally against Imamoglu’s arrest – President Recep Taip Erdogan’s largest political rival, whose arrest on Wednesday gave rise to Turk’s biggest road protests in more than a decade.
After one evening in Istanbul, in Istanbul, Ankara and Western city of Ismir among the protesters and the riot police, who fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse them, security forces arrested 97 people, said internal minister Ali Yelika.
And media reports stated that the police raided the scores of the houses overnight, although the number taken into custody was not confirmed immediately.
Party sources said the 53 -year -old mayor, who was arrested a few days before the CHP, had to name his candidate for the 2028 presidential race, talking to the police on Saturday morning in connection with the “terror” investigation. AFP,
Then he was expected to appear before the prosecutors in the Caglayan Couthouse at 1800 GMT, he could be questioned in both Graft and Terror Investigation.
Already nominated in the increasing list of legal investigations, Imamoglu-who were re-elected last year-have been accused with six others with “supporting and hating a terrorist organization”-that is, the banned Kurdish group PKK.
He is also investigating 99 other suspects to obtain personal data for benefits as “bribery, forced recovery, corruption, excited fraud, and illegally as part of a criminal organization.
Quized for six hours
The party said that he was questioned by the police on Friday for six hours.
“Mr. Imamoglu denied all the allegations against him,” said Mehmat Pehalivan, one of his lawyers.
“The purpose of detention was to reduce Mr. Imamoglu’s reputation in the eyes of the society,” he wrote on X on Saturday, both investigations were “based on untrue allegations” and “violation of the right of a fair test”.
Protesters across the country were re -rally on Saturday night.
In a message on the X sent through his lawyers, Imamoglu said he was “respected and proud” of the protesters who hit the streets in more than 50 of the 81 provinces of the Turkas, saying that he was protecting “our republic, our democracy, the future of a just trumpet and the will of our nation”.
Addressing the crowd outside the city hall in Istanbul on Friday night, Ozgur Ozel, who is the head of the main opposition CHP, said 300,000 people had joined the protest in the disregard of the protest ban and a sharp warning was given from Erdogan that Turkey would not tolerate the “Street Terror”.
As he spoke, the mob was happy and appreciated, waving flags and banners and shouting slogans like: “Shut up or it will be ahead”.
The move against Imamoglu has hurt Turkish Lira and Financial Markets, the Stock Exchange’s BIST 100 index has reduced by about eight percent on Friday.
